


odd old ends

by anxiousAnarchist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, hso 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-12 08:57:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/pseuds/anxiousAnarchist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of all of my bonus round fills from this year's HSO!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. swallowed by the waves and the weird fishes

**Author's Note:**

> Round One fill, for the prompt "Post-apocalyptic + urban fantasy for Jade/Rose"

It takes you three days to find it, three days spent pressing hard looking men against crumbling brick walls and hissing questions at them, needles at their throat. Three days spent sleeping during the day and traveling at night, hood up, knowing that not even the nastiest of sewer-gnomes will fight you with your iridescent scars and sure steps. 

You finally find her court in what used to be a park, and still looks like one if you squint. Buildings have fallen sideways into it, crushed stone slowly being smothered by green vines, and there's more fountains than there ought to be. You notice that the fountains are made out of soda cans, after a minute. 

There's heaps of rubbish and shrubs everywhere and you slip your boots off (a necessity in the glass ground gravel streets) to wiggle grateful toes in thick moss.

The entrance to the court is a joke. The guard's a dog, a huge white beast that could probably tear your throat out before you could draw your needles, but not nearly as impressive as the gutter rats and soothsayers near twenty-third street had made it seem. 

You straighten your shoulders, adjust the rucksack slung across your back, and nod to the guard dog. 

He nods back. This surprises you not in the least. When you make a move to the iron wrought gate, all hung with weeds and thistles and strange pink green flowers, he doesn't kill you. 

The court's scattered with a dozen dozen strange creatures - tall willowy girls with branches for hands, stocky men who sometimes shift into different shapes in the corner of your eye, a thousand chittering icy beautiful ladies who all smile at you like they'd cut your heart out and eat it, like you'd enjoyed it while they did. 

You ignore them.

You ignore everything. 

You walk in a straight line to the center of the throng and you do not look behind and you do not let yourself become distracted, by the jangling bangles of witchy women or the sweet smell of something from your childhood that you can't quite place. 

The Queen's sitting on a throne of milk crates and street signs, and she looks every bit the girl you knew so long ago. She's wearing a dress as green as the grass, and her head's thrown back, laughing at something a skeletal man to her right said. 

There's a hush, when you approach her.

You sweep your skirts, torn and tattered as they are, into something approximating a bow, and the Queen sits there and she laughs and doffs her aluminum and tin crown to you. 

"My lady," you say. 

"Oh, come on!" she says, and bounces to her feet. "You know my name. Use it." 

"Jade," you say, averting your eyes from her bucktoothed shine, the lush green of her dress. "I've come to pledge to serve you. My wands and I. If you'll allow it."

She cocks her head, steps down from the throne, off the dais. "Why are you acting like this, Rose?" Jade asks.

You push up your sleeves a little, so she can see the black and silver burns, the scars of your service to uglier things. 

Jade wraps her arms around you and pulls you in close, you can smell the honey-and-clover smell of her hair and you wilt, a little. 

"I missed you," she says. 

"I'm sorry. I had things to do." 

"People to kill," she says, and bumps her nose against yours. "I know. Are you back now?" 

"I don't know."

There's nothing left of New York, or your mother's home, the places you spent your childhood days glomping around all unsure and stiff. There's nothing left for you out there, not really. 

Jade kisses you, and her mouth is a bear trap. A lock. Locked lips, long nibbling thoughts of old days and her hands curled in your lavender sheets, before everything went to shit.

"Come home, Rosie," she whispers.


	2. Illegitimi non carborundum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Round One, the prompt was "DirkJane, Political and Hurt Comfort"

It's not until the fifth assassination attempt that it hits you - this is your life now. 

You're sitting in the tiny confines of the tour bus, head in your hands, and you can't leave, you can't go out like this. 

"Above all, you don't show fear," you remember Dirk telling you. "Don't let the bastards grind you down" and back then it had been funny and now you are remember the look of hate in the man's eyes when he pointed the gun. 

The door cracks open. "I'm sorry," you say. "I need to be alone for a few minutes." 

"Jane," says Dirk, and steps into the room. "It's just me." 

You look up from your hands then, even though your face must be a mess. Dirk won't care though, Dirk won't need you to be photo-op ready, he's seen you at your worst and he's seen you at your best and throughout the whole bitter campaign he's whispered strategies and encouragements in your ear. 

"You did a great job out there, Jane," he says. He sits down on the bed next to you. There's just barely enough room. "Showed that impetuous conflagration of hardcore haters what's up."

"Sure," you sniffle. "Fine, I 'showed them what's up,' but dagnabit Dirk, that doesn't matter if I can't keep alive until election day!"

Your voice wavers on the last word. He slips off his shades and puts them aside and you know he can see the fear in your eyes, in the roll of your shoulders.

His eyes remind you of marigolds. 

"Hey," he says, and wraps his arms around you. "Hey, come on Jane. You're talking to me here. Your number one advisor, the chess master himself, the grand puppeteer of this whole fucking thing. You'll stay alive. I'll make sure of it." 

You let out another choked sob and he just hold you, shushes you gently, plants a kiss to your worried and creased forehead and you don't understand how he is always so goshdarn calm, always, even when he's staring down the barrel of a gun.

(A sudden recollection of something he said to you when you were still kids - _"If you ever need help, Jane. If you're ever in any trouble at all, let me know. Just say the word."_ The sincerity burned you.) 

You bury your head in his shoulder, let him stroke your short choppy hair as you wipe away your tears with his shirt. "You can't pull everybody's strings," you say. 

"Watch me," says Dirk. 

His hand clenches around a fistful of your blouse and you hear the butterfly hammer of his heart and you hope you won't let him down.


	3. Dawnlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Round One prompt, Rose<3Kanaya twilight + parody

When you wake up, your sort of maybe kind of girlfriend is standing in the corner of your room, watching you.

You pull your sheets up around your chest. “What are you doing?” you ask. “What possible reason could you have to come in here and not even try to wake m – Were you _watching me?_ ” 

Kanaya’s face is stony, impassive. “Yes. I was watching you sleep.” 

“For the love of God, _why_?” you ask.

Kanaya’s been acting strange lately, but you think it’s actually getting worse. 

“I must protect you,” she says. “From the dangers of the world, my kin –“

“Other rainbow drinkers? Kanaya, you’re the only one in existence. You’re one of a handful of trolls in existence, period.” 

“And,” she says, after a suitably dramatic pause, “From myself.” 

She flashsteps over to the side of your bed (you have got to stop her and Dave from hanging out this often) and leans over you. “I’m a monster,” she whispers. 

“Okay, sure Kanaya,” you say, rubbing your hands over your face. “Did you forget that part where I gave in to the dark urges of nameless beings from beyond the greatest depths? Cause that was a thing that happened.” 

“No,” says Kanaya. “Your scent - I long to – to – drink your blood. I can barely resist the temptation.” She chokes back a sob. 

“You bite people all the time. Remember? You bit Karkat for breakfast.” 

“But you’re different,” says Kanaya. She’s leering over you. “The things I would do to you, if I could –“

“Really?” you say, raising an eyebrow. “Do, go on. Feel free to explain what you’d like to do. In detail, if you will.”

“What – what do you mean?” 

You grab ahold of her collar and pull her closer to you. “Come on, Kanaya. If you want to make out with me, you just have to say so.” 

Kanaya squeaks when you kiss her, and blushes a terrible green when you pull her on top of you. You’re suddenly frightfully glad for her supernatural glow, you get to see every inch of her squirming embarrassment. 

“But I’m a creature of the day!” she says.

“So am I, you ridiculous woman,” you say, and she kisses you quiet.


	4. Twenty Things You Learn Your Junior Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Round One, prompt was Aranea/Meenah 20 Facts About fic + high school au

1\. People who hated you last year will still hate you.

2\. They will still push you into lockers, they mainly being Meenah Peixes, and whatever guppies she can scare into doing what she says. 

3\. Meenah, when cornered, is much smaller than she looks when your positions are reversed. You tower over her. The whole affect of her – hard punk princess with not as much a chip as a city block on her shoulder – is reduced. Her makeup is less harsh. You notice one of her nose rings has a tiny gemstone set in it, fuchsia-pink and sharp.

4\. You learn that she gets nervous.

5\. You learn that she uses watermelon chapstick. You learn how to taste it on your lips. 

6\. Meenah’s house is huge, even for your neighborhood. She invites you over, ostensibly to do homework, but that’s a ruse, naturally. 

7\. Her sheets are very soft.

8\. When you tickle her behind her right ear, and in the crook of her left arm, she yelps and bites and laughs so hard she chokes. 

9\. She’s got impeccable grammar, if she needs it. Her fish puns are mere ornaments.

10\. Fish puns are glubbing contagious.

11\. People are going to give you weird looks when you walk around the halls holding hands, and not just cause you’re girls, but because you’re _Meenah and Aranea_ , and this is outside the normal acceptable parameters of Reality As We Know It. 

12\. You learn that you really don’t give a fuck. 

13\. It’s insanely simple, cheating off of Meenah in math class.

14\. She thinks it’s hot, when you cheat off of her. 

15\. This leads to a rather embarrassing moment, when you learn that janitor’s closets are not, like every fictional media had led you to believe, rarely utilized for anything other than making out.

16\. You learn that detention is a lot more fun that it should be, when Meenah’s there.

17\. It's easy to sneak out of the school, when the teacher's back is turned.

18\. It's even easier to break into her (silent, endless) house.

19\. Meenah's bra is, like everything else about her, loud and abrasive. Polka dotted, too. A bright terrible green.

20\. You learn that when she whispers your name it sounds like a curse.


	5. Time After Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Round Five, prompt was DaveRose in the TARDIS

Rose crosses her arms, and leans over the console to peer closely at the various knobs and switches. “Dave, if I were to ask you very nicely why we appear to be in a Public Police Call Box from Britain in the 1960s, that’s bigger on the inside and also, apparently, capable of traveling through time, would you be able to answer me in a succinct and non-sarcastic manner?” 

You poke a switch, and look at a display that you’re pretty sure displays where you are currently. It shows the time, too, which you know is right. Down to the second, pretty impressive, honestly. 

“No,” you say. “I mean I could make up some shit if you want transuniversal quantum thingy basically like maybe we took a wrong turn at Sasketchawan or the signing of the Magna Carta and ended up on this sweet piece of biznasty -” 

She pushes you gently on the shoulder, which is sort of like your off switch, rambly dialogue-wise. 

“I’m sure this ship has an owner,” she says. “And I doubt they’ll be pleased to return to find two stowaways fiddling with the dials.” 

“You saw outside,” you say. “Hells of red planets weird gobbly piles of pink much undescribable flora and fauna I hate to break it to you but since our little excursion in the realm of what-the-fuck a couple of years ago I am kinda anti gettin stuck on planets what I don’t know where they are.” 

Rose slips her hand into yours. “Yes,” she says. “I’m aware.” She smiles, and you smile too, because Rose smiling - an honest, earnest smile, not one meant to ward off foes or punctuate a particularly sarcastic point - is a thing of beauty. “Besides, I don’t think whoever - whatever - it is will be able to take two Sburb survivors.”

“Two extremely attractive Sburb survivors.” 

“One more attractive than the other.”

“Gosh Rose wow didn’t know you liked my face that much.” 

The door to the machine is flung open, and a man, all arms and legs and tweed galumphs -

“Is galumph a word? I’m gonna use it anyway,” you whisper to Rose.

“Live your dreams,” she whispers back.

\- Anyway, galumphs into the room, and pauses when he sees the two of your, hands locked, standing in front of the console. 

“Ah!” he says. “Another day, another completely improbable breakdown in my security! Well, go on then -” he clasps his hands, and rocks on his heels. “Name rank list of demands et cetera. Just go on, get it all out of your system.” 

Rose slips one of her needles from the concealed pocket in her sleeve down into her hand. “I’m Rose Lalonde,” she says. “Mr. -?”

“Doctor!” he says. “Just doctor, that’s it, just the one word.”

“Doctor,” she says. She’s trying not to laugh, you think. “My name is Rose Lalonde, this is my charming brother and constant companion, Dave Strider -”

“Sup,” you say, throwing him the bro-nod. He responds with a spasmodic gesture of greeting of his own. 

“- And as for demands, well, do you have any tea?” 

“Or like, some Dew. Apple juice, I dunno, anything works. You have no idea how thirsty you get after dragging someone a couple thousand years well no I guess you probably do so,” you shrug.

“Eloquently put, as ever,” says Rose. “Tea, yes, and/or comparable refreshments, or I’m afraid we will be forced to hold your ship hostage.” 

The Doctor’s smile is bright and completely earnest. “This is going to be the most fun hostile takeover I’ve had in centuries,” he says, bounding up some stairs towards another door that leads, well, okay you have no fucking clue. “Follow me I’ll take you to the kitchen, and meanwhile you will have to explain where you got that - “ he gestures to Rose’s Thorn. “interesting piece of equipment. And are those Ben Stiller’s shades?”

“See I told you I’d take you somewhere nice,” you say to Rose as you follow the man down a white corridor. “This guy’s down with the clown, he knows Stiller shades when he sees ‘em and everything. I bet if you ask him real nicely he has some stories about gibbering betentacled monstrosities to share too.” 

Rose squeezes your hand tighter. “If I get stuck in a confined space with only rambling barely coherent companions for years, again, then I will have your head.” 

“Shut up and follow the nice bouncing alien,” you say. 

She rolls her eyes, and you kiss her cheek, and you’re both going to have to reflect later on the fact that this isn’t the strangest situation you’ve encountered in the last six months but for now everything’s a little all right.


	6. the fever and the delirium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Round One! Prompt was Kanaya<3

if you will find a river that runs through  
white sands, between high mountains,  
in those industrial blight

rock gently

set your teeth

short hair, slim hips, and a mouth  
that tastes like peaches. 

sing while you can by all means -  
the singing season of life is short;  
but sing

Learn the names of God

OBSTACLES. Movement of Mirror.  
Retching. Arching or A glimpse into  
some possible future 

there are dark times coming, 

There is not a single vacant room throughout  
the entire infinite hotel. because you are a lover

beyond mortality, Feel the prow s grating,  
golden, on the stars. Forgive miserable sorcerer

(More like crying or sick to their stomach.) 

set your teeth

sleep is a recipe

([source](www.twitter.com/horse_ebooks))


End file.
